Photo by Owen Lystrup on Unsplash
JetBlue and Southwest Airlines Collision Narrowly Avoided at Reagan National Airport
April 19, 2024
The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia was the site of a narrowly avoided collision between a JetBlue Airways plane and a Southwest Airlines plane on April 18.
The Associated Press reports that a JetBlue flight took off on runway 4 at the Virginia-based airport at around 7:41 a.m. on Thursday when an air traffic controller instructed a Southwest flight to cross the same runway. The Southwest Airlines flight was bound for Orlando, Florida. Its takeoff time was scheduled for 7:47 a.m.
No injuries were reported between the two airplanes. AP claims no details have yet been released about how this potential hazard could have occurred.
This incident follows the FAA’s decision to install new runway safety technology at select airports. Austin-Bergstrom, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Dallas Love Field will be “the first airports in the nation to receive new airfield surveillance systems.” These systems will reduce the risk of issues such as that which occurred in Virginia by improving air traffic controllers’ situational awareness.
Collision narrowly avoided at Reagan National Airport after two planes cleared onto the same runway https://t.co/551pYvtySF pic.twitter.com/HGj6zzrrNC
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) April 19, 2024
“We’re committed to doing everything possible to make our runways even safer,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. “This cost-effective technology provides controllers with timely and accurate depictions of aircraft and vehicles on the entire airfield in all weather conditions.”
In January, the FAA also announced the Surface Safety Metric (SSM) to identify the most significant risks within the runway environment. Unlike previous metrics that focused on the number and severity of runway incursions, a Surface Safety Risk Index is used to assess the severity of the risk of those events.
The Surface Safety Risk Index was developed by the FAA to assess the severity of the risk of runway safety events. It employes modeling to allocate risk weights to various event outcomes, such as aircraft damage, injuries, and fatalities, as well as collisions, taxi surface incidents, and injury to pedestrians on the runway. These modernizations are credited for saving passenger and crew member lives, as well as minimizing aircraft damage.
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